ATP Oil And Gas Files For Bankruptcy, CEO Blames Obama

Now that the "alternative energy" industry is in shambles following one after another solar company bankruptcy, as the realization that at current prices, alternative energy business models are still just too unsustainable, no matter how much public equity is pumped into them, more "traditional" companies have resumed circling the drain. First, it was Patriot Coal, which finally succumbed to reality a month ago. Now it is the turn of ATP Oil and Gas, which filed Chapter 11 in Texas last night. And sure enough, in a world in which nobody is to blame, and everything is someone else's fault, the CEO promptly made a case that he is blameless and it is all Obama's fault. According to Forbes: "The founder and chairman of [ATP Paul Bulmahn] wants the world to know that the Obama Administration—and its illegal ban on deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP disaster—is to blame for the implosion of his company. Not him. “It is all directly attributable to what the government did to us,” he rails. “This Administration has gone out of its way to create problems for my company, the company that I formed from scratch.”

He’s more than angry. Bulmahn, 68, has already brought suit against the U.S. government seeking damages ($68 million to start with) for the 2010 moratorium that shut down deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico for the better part of a year. In an earlier case brought by ATP and rig company Ensco, Federal District Judge Martin Feldman ruled in May 2011 that the feds “acted unlawfully by unreasonably delaying action” on drilling permit applications. Still, ATP has a long, winding road to any hope of recovering damages from the government (which says it’s protected from claims by sovereign immunity).

There is truth to Bahlman's allegations, although a lot of it may be attributable to sheer bad luck. After all it was just as the company had rolled out its massive expansion project: the $800 million Titan deepwater production platform, that disaster struck with the Deepwater Horizon leading to a drilling moratorium.

While hundreds of companies with operations in the gulf were affected by the government’s decision, perhaps no other was as hard hit as ATP—or as vulnerable. In 2010 the company had completed work on its $800 million deepwater production platform Titan and floated it out to the deepwater Telemark field 160 miles south of New Orleans. Bulmahn planned for Titan to complete drilling the final feet of four wells, hook them up, and let the oil—and the cash—start rolling in.

On April 19, 2010 ATP refinanced and rolled up $1.5 billion in debt into a new bond issue “and celebrated with champagne.” He says that at the time ATP stood a good chance of doubling its oil and gas volumes to 50,000 barrels per day within a year.

But the Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20. “We didn’t foresee an impact. The Titan is 80 miles farther south, and the spill is going to drift to the north,” says Bulmahn. Underwriter JPMorgan agreed, and it closed on the bond offering.

Soon ATP was informed by regulators that it would not be allowed to complete those Telemark wells, even though Titan was already outfitted with all the safety redun- dancies subsequently required for deepwater work. “They closed our spigot on revenues, but didn’t stop our expenses” for interest payments, rig contracts and the like. Bulmahn scrambled to spin off Titan as a subsidiary and borrowed $350 million more against it. ATP posted a net loss of $349 million in 2010.

And while the company's demise was surely not ameliorated by this administration's energy policies, there is a far more pragmatic reason why it had to file for bankruptcy: debt. $3.5 billion in debt to be precise, as that is how much it filed on its bankruptcy petition. Because had the company carried a clean balance sheet, it would have been able to mothball any temporarily non-viable project, cut costs to a minimum, and wait until the skies overhead shift. Instead, it was locked into a refinancing game to the bottom, with leverage into the stratosphere, that merely lay in wait for the spark to arrive, and set all that insurmountable debt on fire. And come it did.

Not only that, but despite the GOM setback, the company set off on an even more aggressive, and even more leveraged expansion scheme:

Instead of slashing costs and circling wagons, Bulmahn in late 2010 chose to take ATP on an international adventure. “I felt the need to find a way to keep our technically expert people occupied,” he says. That meant forging a deal with Isramco to drill an exploratory well offshore of Israel, near an area that has seen some massive natural gas discoveries. One well was finished in June; drilled to a depth of 14,000 feet it tapped as much as 800 billion cubic feet of gas. Sounds good, but it will be years before the infrastructure can be put in place to harvest it. Meanwhile ATP has $40 million in costs sunk off the coast of Israel.

Finally, the fact that ATP was just very badly run was hardly among the pressing issues the CEO felt like blaming his bankruptcy on:

Ravi Kamath, high-yield analyst with Global Hunter Securities, has been bearish on ATP for years and had a sell rating on ATP debt since early 2011, when it was trading at 104 cents on the dollar. It’s fallen to 29 cents now. Kamath says ATP’s problems reach far beyond the moratorium. He keeps a spreadsheet with 105 instances from the past decade where he says ATP has overpromised and then underdelivered. “Bulmahn has said lots of stuff that never happened,” says Kamath. “They have 11 years of bad forecasts.”

The irony is that in the end, it is the administration's fault, but not for the reason noted.

What Obama, in conjunction with Wall Street, and the Fed are guilty of, is encouraging people like Bulmahn, and everyone else, to lever up to the hilt on cheap, cheap debt. The more debt the better: just ask America's student and the record $1 trillion in debt they currently hold, more than all credit card debt combined, and the next credit bubble to pop. Just ask the second coming of the housing bubble as Wall Street investors, eager to build out rental empires are engaging in a wild borrowing spree to be among those participating in the REO-to-rental program, which too will soon implode. Also, blame the administration for allowing companies with atrocious balance sheets (if quality assets) such as Chesapeake to remain in existence, as despite an untenable leverage profile, ZIRP forces investors to plough ever more money into unsustainable businesses such as CHK. Why? It provides just a few more bps of yield, which in the past three years has become the mantra among the fixed income community.

ATP is just the first: massively levered company, with a balance sheet priced to perfection, ignorant of the risk borne by a massive debt load. Yes: interest rates may be at record lows, but soaring debt still has to be serviced. When the money inflows end, for one reason or another, and the debt interest can no longer be paid, it is game over.

This is what Obama is guilty of: forcing everyone in America to increasingly rely on debt as the only source of capital, leading to a world where even the tiniest gust of wind in an unexpected direction, or any other unpredictable development, can lead to immediate insolvency. Unless one is Too Big To Fail of course, and can afford to hold the world, and the US economy hostage.

And finally, since there is no such thing as a free lunch, as that the current administration is doing in allowing record low interest rates, is onboard the balance sheet risk to the tune of $1+ trillion in sovereign US debt added to the tally of current and future generations of Americans. Why not: after all rates are low, and the USD is the reserve currency. What can possibly go wrong.

In a word everything: as the last 3 weeks showed, a year's worth of gains in the bond market can go poof in the span of days, if not hours.

As for the reserve currency argument, well, there is always our favorite graphic.

Finally, as to what lies in store for ATP next, simple: the carcass will be picked clean as more debt is added, however this time to a fresh start company. In the process all the existing debt and quity will be wiped out. Just like what should have happened with America's just as insolvent financial system in the fall of 2008.

So what happens to ATP from here? They have already secured $600 million in debtor-in-possession financing, but after first-lien holders like Michael Dell’s MSD Capital are paid off, that won’t get it very far. Analysts say investors holding common shares, preferreds, convertible bonds and unsecured debt will get wiped out. Buyout bids are welcome.

In a few years time, the US itself, leveraged far, far more than ATP ever possibly could, may be seeking buyout bids for itself. And China will be delighted to oblige. At pennies on the then devalued dollar of course.

The article mentions alt energy companies failing. They'll never have a chance until oil is much higher and stays that way.

The cartels Corzine them over and over, yet muppets never learn. Push oil price to new highs, and get lots of gullible investors into alts. Pull the rug out on prices and watch them suffer. Rinse, repeat.

In retrospect the Volvo thing was probably a bad idea, and pretty certain thegas tanking didn't help.
Largest Volvo overseas delivery car order in history

In 2006, on behalf of its employees, the company placed the largest single non-fleet order for overseas delivery in the Volvo carmaker's history. Every employee of the company was given the option to receive a new Volvo car and a trip to Sweden.[7]

This record order was a result of a challenge made by the company to its employees to reach certain corporate goals for the year. The challenge was that if the goals were met, every employee regardless of rank or job description would receive a new 2006 Volvo S60 sedan and a trip to Sweden to take delivery of the car. Paul Bulmahn, the Chairman and President of the company disqualified himself from receiving the bonus.[7]

beginning production of the deepwater Mississippi Canyon Block 711 field, also known as Gomez, *increasing the company's production of natural gas to 160 million cubic feet (4,500,000 m3) per day (nearly a triple production of the previous year),

obtaining a 200% reserve replacement (the goal was exceeded with a replacement rate of 1,367% rate),

have to agree that this guy (and others) should have seen coming the Obama goal of systematically destroying whole industries in order to move "forward" his agenda's, and retooled (read greased, paid off, contributed etc.)

Any good businessman knows that there needs to be a line item expense for bribery on their books

He coulda' bought a waiver by going to Dead Fishes $25K a plate dinner or bundling more through Hon. J Corzine. He can still organize a union and get Barry to screw the DIP Lender and give the reorg'd co.to the union. Squeeze them out later under Mittens. Gubmint investing, Bitchez!

So now these idiots want to have it both ways!!!!!
You EITHER built this business from scratch, and it sure as shit is your fault it went bankrupt OR you didn't build it and then it would be logical that it wasn't your fucking fault!!!
But news flash asshole, you don't get to have it both ways!!!!!

I do own my own business, that I DID build over the last 15 years into what it is today, I dont give a shit what some politician says one way or the other, but guess what............ If it goes bankrupt, it's MY god damn fault too, not some politician!!!!!

I'm getting sick and tired of these so called CEO's and business leaders who want to have it both ways!!!! TBTF wasn't any ones fault, MF Global, Standard Charter in Briatain, Lehman, GM, Knight Capital, Countrywide, and the fucking list could go on for days!!!!!! Excuses, excuses, excuses, the free market use to bury these worthless POS executives and someone smarter and stronger and more ambitious, would get their assets for cheap and build something better. Instead now, we protect these pussies, we feel sorry for them, we blame the government, we bail them out, and we say keep trying, better luck next time!!!

It's pathetic, it's NO different then continue to send a welfare check to a crack mother, and expecting her to get a job and clean up!!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, this Country is messed up!!! Keep making excuses for these failures, because they have convinced you they have money and started businesses, etc!! This guy failed, he's broke, he should be broke, his business and all it's assets should be auctioned off, and fuck him!!
That's called free market, survival of the fittest, capitalism!! Which on a business level, is the greatest thing, if you don't like it, your part of the problem!!!!!

So I suppose if a business 4 doors down from you burned down and the city council/mayor/WH ordered your front and back doors chained shut to 'protect the public' so you could only move your widgets out a bathroom window, you'd be OK with that?

"I don't give a shit what some politician says one way or the other..." but apparently you wouldn't have a choice would you? Or buck the WH and see how fast your ass ends up in Club Fed.

Your rant is stupid. If it was a Free Market, then BP would have been on the hook for it's cleanup and it's competitors could have taken advantage of the hole in the market to fill. Instead the Fed steps in and declares a moratorium leaving everyone hanging at the whim of the WH while the 3-ring cleanup circus commenced.

The guy may not have had the best business model and may have compounded mistakes on a bad situation but until you're in the same boat you can hardly judge.

I CAN judge this fool and I will, that's the jungle brother, it isn't fair, it isn't pretty, it's war for survival everyday!!! You see that's the problem with people who claim to love capitalism and "animal spirits" and all that other shit that sounds sexy at the wall street dinner parties and Political fundraisers, but when they have to live in that world, work in it, survive in it, unfettered and uncontrolled.........they start crying about TBTF and systematic risk, and fairness, and how we shouldn't judge this poor guy, and bailout that guy!!!

Let me clue you in brother to how SUCCESSFUL business people think, you know, the ones who don't borrow more money then they can pay back under any circumstances, the ones who understand they need to think 5 steps ahead of the competition, the ones who don't make excuses when skit happens and blame others, the ones who save money every chance they get, ya those business people, the ones that built this Country!!!! They don't give a shit what government is doing day to day, their too busy building a business, crushing their competition, employing people, and delivering above and beyond for their clients!!!

What, do you think government and taxes didn't exist in business until Obama got elected, that regulation wasn't always around, whether it was gov or your competition imposing it, Jesus get real man!! I've never got up once in 15 years of running and owning multiple businesses and asked, "gee what's the WH doing today?" My account told me when I was 25, don't think about money as "yours" and what to do with it, until you pay your overhead, labor, and taxes, then be wise with the rest!!! Best advice I ever got!!!!!

Oh look, another blustering psychic poster running amok with !!!!!'s everywhere and cheerleading himself. Pat yourself on the back much? You fail to address the fact as stated in the article and the point I made regarding your rant and you do it on the premise that I've never owned a business while knowing nothing about me or my background. I know what it takes to make and run a business so your advice is not needed nor wanted. Your dispensing so-called 'advice' while piling on useless sophmoric cheering is laughable. So, to get back to the point, what would you do if .Gov threw the switch on your business and left you holding the bag with no recourse to change the position of said switch? And stop with the drivel about government and taxes and regulation; those are all knowns and can be calculated in any business. The action of a bureaucrat who wantonly shuts the lid on your business because he's too incompetent to come up with a better solution and has to do something/anything in order to pander to public opinion is NOT known. It's a total unknown. This guy put close to a $1B dollars on the line(and I'm pretty sure you don't handle any amounts even close to that) and when the dealer threw him a jack and an ace the House suddenly announces that Blackjack is 19 and then closes the table. So that's a Free Market to you? Oh wait, that's the 'jungle'. You're pretty good at sounding like a blowhard but I'd hazard that you've never been dealt the hand that this guy was and even if you actually own/run a business it doesn't automatically put you in the same class as this guy any more than a hot dog vendor railing against a Sam Walton. I mean how much free time can you have to run a business while making your own bio-diesel and buying solar cells off Ebay to cut your electric bill? I'm in awe. And please, 'jungle', 'brother'; what are you 12? Ah, judging by your spelling, !!!!!!!!!!!'s, and blossoming Ebay career I'd have to say yes.

The dude does use too many exclamation points but those points are right on: most of people act like there was no gov't before Obama, that a McCain WH would have done something different in the face of the Deep Water disatster. The blame Obama thing is as tiresome as the Blame Bush thing. Did Obama make Deepwater go BOOOOM. No he didn't. But construction and shoody work by haliburton did by most accounts. Why not Blame Dick Cheney since without the BP spill ATP wouldn't be in such deepwater with out a fucking snorkel. He played, shit happened, he lost. Fuck him and his crying ass. That's what 20 year olds do: blame others. Man the fuck up. Ohh, Obama made a regulation waaah wahh, yeah he did. But so did every Pres before him and somehow businesses managed to thrive. FDR passed a lot of regs as did Clinton and yet business thrived. This guy just can't navigate the tough waters we are in so he drowned. END OF STORY. No more bailouts for anyone ecept the ones who deerve it: the taxper and the people who have worked most of the adult lives. What about them? Oh yeah, they are just drug addicted lazy fucks since 2009...it was a mgaicla thing how all these hardworking people turned into lazy, crack smoking people overnight!

The dude does use too many exclamation points but those points are right on: most of ZH's new residents act like there was no gov't before Obama, that a McCain WH would have done something different in the face of the Deep Water disaster. The blame Obama thing is as tiresome as the Blame Bush thing. Did Obama make Deepwater go BOOOOM. No he didn't. But construction and shoddy work by Halliburton did by most accounts. Why not Blame Dick Cheney since without the BP spill ATP wouldn't be in such deepwater with out a fucking snorkel. He played, shit happened, he lost. Fuck him and his crying ass. That's what 20 year olds do: blame others. Man the fuck up. Ohh, Obama made a regulation waaah wahh, yeah he did. But so did every Pres before him and somehow businesses managed to thrive. FDR passed a lot of regs as did Clinton and yet business thrived. This guy just can't navigate the tough waters we are in so he drowned. END OF STORY. No more bailouts for anyone except the ones who deserve it: the taxpayer and the people who have worked most of the adult lives. What about them? Oh yeah, they are just drug addicted lazy fucks since 2009...it was a magaical thing how all these hardworking people turned into lazy, crackheads overnight! I'm sure some did from the stress, but if they worked 80-90 percent of their adult lives we should help them as the banks did this to us and the gov't -- both Rs and Ds--bailed htem out and said fuck you to everyone else. Of course, those banks did have a gun to our heads. The banks robbed us. How ironic? But the point is a good businessman would anticipate what a new president will do and react accordingly. That's capitalism. This whole utopian free markets in the pre-Obama period are illusions. Nothing really has changed. Just a lot more paperwork for healthcare billers. I'm only 30 and I figured this out. Most people on this board I figure are 45 and over, so you should know better. Dude is right.

Every deep water driller in the fucking gulf got affected the same! (notice one exclamation point:) Your argument would carry some water if they all had filed BK in the last 2 years! But they didn't, did they, that's just my point, this guy bet wrong, had bad timing, made bad calls, whatever it was, he played, he lost, that's the game! If you think he should be bailed or treated with some sympathy, your no different then Obama with GM, or Paulson with every fucking investment bank on wall street!

I said you must have never owned a business, because people who truly risk their ass everyday in business and do the work themselves, and actually DO build this shit from the ground up, understand that risk and lose is a normal part of this game! If I was a hot dog vender and Walmart moved in next door, you would say "tough shit boy, that's the jungle, that's competition, but this oil drilller fuck up, you think we should "not judge him, he got a raw deal, he should get a do over", right?? Because why, government exists and BP dumps a trillion gallons of oil in the gulf with their fuck up???

And as far as the solar panels and biodiesel go, it's my hobby brother, some guys like to golf, buy expensive cars, blow their money on women and coke, go to Vegas, etc etc. I like to head to my shop and invent shit, experiment with shit, I like to test things out for myself, instead of believing what ever dip shit on TV and talk radio says about the world I live in!

I like hobbys that free my life and family from the systematic chains of our society. If I'm not legit in your book, because of that, so be it, you do what you want, I'll do my thing!

As a serious entrepreneur, do you think I would have not insured myself in multiple ways, from being bankrupt if something happened that was beyond my control, YES, his business model was flawed, he didn't have insurance against a shut down, he didn't diversify his assets and have the savings he needed to wheather the storm, but NOW he's a victim!!!!

Ahhhhh my god, you people don't deserve to live in a capitalistic society, the top end tax rate in 1950 was 90%, we are so far gone at this point, people who call themselves "pro businesss conservatives" don't even know what business is and how it should be handled!!!!

Fascism......come on man!! Another dinner party and fundraiser buzz word! What I am talking about IS CAPITALISM!!!!!!
Every single deep water driller in the fucking gulf was shut down equally during that moratorium, but has every single deep water drilling company that was affected equally, file for bankruptcy yet??
Maybe before screaming fascism and making more excuses for another failed businessman, you should start by answering that question!!!

The jungle is the jungle, it always will be! No excuses, no mercy, no matter what!! If your smarter, faster, stronger, bigger, you will have a better chance to survive, if not, your food for the other guys!! That's what the animal spirit thing is all about!!!

You don't talk like any business owner I 've ever talked with. What exactly is your business? I work in a heavily regulated industry and I assure you the government can put you out of business over night. It doesn't usually happen that way. It's a thousand pin pricks or knife wounds. You try to adapt and suck it up but what happens is what you see now. Companies start moving things out, from north to south or even offshore. They stay in business but all the stupid little collectivists find themselves unemployed, underemployed, low wages, outsourced, etc.

My bottom line is that the market, not government should be the one that makes winners and losers. Bulman should not even be able to say that the government broke his company with any credibility, but as you see, he can.

I own two different businesses, one is in a very regulated, labor union heavy environment and the other is in a very unregulated area of business, I hope you'll forgive me if I don't drop web addresses and personnel info on a public blog, but I assure you I've been in business for over 15 years, started my first business out of an apartment with less then $5000 capital, turned it into a million dollar a year venture, and I'm not 40 yet!!

I'm sorry I don't "sound" like any of your buddies at the chamber of commerce or the Country Club, but I'm too busy kicking those guys asses, to have drinks with them!!! The last $100,000 bid I put in, no one bid against us, you know why?.......... They can't compete with our labor costs, because I work my ass off MYSELF, I dont ask any employee or freelancer who works for me, to do anything I can't do myself as good or better!!! I'm not politicking all over town in the Country Club, the Rotary Club, and the Chamber, or playing golf while my employees are working!!! So they can't compete and boy do they ever cry and bitch and whine, just like most of these people who have down arrowed this conversation!!

That's what entrepreneurs do, thats how real capitalist killers think, you think Michael Jordan ever gave a shit that the poor boys who played against him, didn't get the same glory, the rings, the money, he did?? Fuck no, he reveled in their defeat, their defeats made him more hungry for blood, not less!! Maybe we should have given Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley a "bailout ring" for trying hard!!! I mean, it's not fair, it's not good for the game right, we should spread it out a little!!

There's rules of the game that everyone plays by, within each industry, if you can't figure out how to make money, deal with the government, and profit, you shouldn't be in business, you should be an employee somewhere, I'm sorry that "sounds" harsh, but who ever said you where promised success in this jungle, most can't hang in the jungle!! Government regulation, taxes, competition, and failure are all part of this jungle, either get your ass working harder and complaining and crying less, or your dead!!

Looks like this oilman had a gameplan for making profit when the govt changed the rules in the middle of the game. He had a lot riding on the big platform coming online, but was not allowed to complete production. Sure hope something like this doesn't happen to Renewable Life. Who would he blame?

I think that's my point in this admittedly too long rant, I wouldnt blame anyone but myself, that's what capitalism is brother, ruthless, unpredictable, risky business, in which no one should be promised or guaranteed anything! TPTB have always been in the game going back to Rome and before! if you can swim in shark infected waters, jump in, if not stay on the beach and talk politics all day!

Bulmahn needs to read more. You call Goldman Sachs, Timmy Geithner and tell him large donations are on the way. You spin off windmills and solar panels equal to the money you need. You get a government loan and do some photo ops with the Prez. Then your open the doors, close them three months later, file for bankruptcy, misplace a billion dollars or so and walk away. Holder will amazingly refuse to prosecute. The NY Times will back his play.

Then you get an expensive Manhattan apartment next door to John Corzine and laugh about how you actually produced nothing at all. Laugh as you sip Dom and nibble beluga and admire your signed photo of the Kenyan.

Hey Spaz! I agree. As I read and think through this whole free market system, I have moved the entrepreneurs to the top of the esteem ladder. Without them not a damned thing happens. There is money, labor, land, etc available but the entrepreneur is the guy or gal that has some expertise, insight, guts and vision to put all this stuff together and make it work. The rest of society benefits as we all learn trades and skills that pay off over time. There would be no auto mechanics if Mercedes did not invent the automobile. A guy like Henry Ford figures out how to mass produce them. How many machinists, metal workers, and even accountants and janitors work because of the insight and ability of these kinds of people to make something people want? And the products get better over the years!

If any real entrepreneurs read ZH, I say with all sincerity, "God bless you!" thanks for giving the rest of us a better life through your products, services and productive work.

No he just hired many guys to put his idea into action. This guy just risked his ass to create jobs that fed, housed and clothed many families. In turn those folks spent money earned from putting those nuts and bolts on a rig to support other businesses like grocery stores, dry cleaners, hardware stores, auto dealers etc... That sir would be called trickle down. Now the trickle is gone. The jobs are gone and all those ancillary business lose customers and enough of that happens those owners lose it all too. It's not really that hard if you use a couple of brain cells.

Without the initial guys idea, capital and motivation not one of those others get hired. Now of course those workers busted their butts for the CEO but it's the CEO that will end up losing his shirt while the workers hope they can find another job to replace the one just lost. Everyone loses. But many want to burn the CEO who didn't build a thing but obviously is scum because he is a CEO of course.

Of course the mantra of America now seems to be "Success bad" "Less than mediocrity good" Ass backwards in my opinon. America now seems to wish everyone be equally poor or average instead of encouraging entrepreneurial success. Well we seem to encourage it until the success actually happens then we like to tear 'em down because of "too much success" My what a fine society we are morphing in to.

No I'm saying he in all likely hood had most of his wealth tied up in to the company. I'm saying when he started this company he had to plunk down his own cash for start up cost or borrow agains this own assets to have skin in the game before a bank would let him borrow a penny. See Audrey McClendon of CHK. He had his mega salary and bonus if and when he took one tied to the success or failure of that company. Do you not understand how corporate executives make their paper wealth?

I'm saying this companies stock price went from 80 something to 2 in about a years time and the CEO went from seeing his risk payoff and he getting the reward for his risk to now having a bunch of stock worth nothing. So no technically he's not personally liable for the companies losses but here is only one person here on crack that can't see the losses this guy took. I'm not saying cry for the man though I also suspect that like most companies, many of the employees were given stock or at least options that they probably hoped to put their kids through college or retire on and all that is gone in a puff of smoke. So in a sense many people are taking theoretical "personal liability" for the companies losses. Again it's not that hard to figure thsi out once a few brain cells are used and not just emotional rants that are not even that well thought out.

You know, it struck me that in real life, there is huge risk taken by entrepreneurs. Buhlman may not be the best or most efficient at what he does, but he takes gambles...big gambles perhaps. However, there really are Titan rigs, real people with highly specialized skills, big dollars and potential big payoffs at stake. Maybe he is too big a gambler but it at least appears to be a potential for payoff. He didn't get where he is with constant failure.

The problem with government and dictators like Obama and his gang is that with a stroke of a pen it is game-over for ATP. Yeah, he was leveraged and making big bets, but they are his to make. The market should pronounce his failure or success, not nameless, faceless mediocre little fascist regulators lead by Il Duce' Obama. The market gets to pick. Can anyone say that he definitely would have failed? I could see him on Bloomberg or Fox Business talking about how he was "all-in" and leveraged to the sky when he hit the big black jackpot. He could spit in the eye of his naysayers. I could envision this scenario, too.

I tend to prefer companies like ATP and the big bets they make to these BS fly by night tech stocks like...Facebook which never really produce anything but hype. I will take oil and gas.

"In a few years time, the US itself, leveraged far, far more than ATP ever possibly could, may be seeking buyout bids for itself. And China will be delighted to oblige. At pennies on the then devalued dollar of course."

this ain't gonna end well, people. in so many ways, the country has been looted, gutted, defiled, ransacked, you name it, it's been done. & the worst part of it all is that thru thick & thin the general population, the good citizens of this country have continued to "believe" in government. someday the citizens will realize that the role of government is to loot the population & there is only one way to protect yourself, hold real assets outside of the banking system & hide them from governmental theft. i sure have learned a lot; just wait.... just wait til the sheeple wake up to realize that their life's savings have been inflated away to worthlessness. it's not gonna be a pretty site.

I'm not sure how you call anyone a "Good Citizen" if they blindly back a government of any sort. Good denotes that they are not criminal nor do they steal. When speaking about a government that uses taxation to generate it's revenue, you are not exactly speaking about anyone that is "Good". As for being a citizen, if merely being born with a government's regional lines of claim is all it takes then I fail to see how anyone can honestly call someone a citizen, since citizenship is merely a crap shoot rather than what it traditionally refers to as a willingness to be a servant to the state. I do not think anyone is willingly a servant to the State, no matter how much of a Statist they are.

My two cents is that the folks have actually been listening...and acting. The collapse of sales tax revenues in California is a good tell: if people start growing their own food and sharing it...well..."there goes your sales tax revenue." yet obviously consumption hasn't ceased..."life goes on." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jW8_2Us5c&feature=related

Perhaps if the Gas & Oil industry could effectively self-regulate and not systemically ignore safety and not dump billions of gallons of oil into the gulf, billions of tons of chemicals in the air and other global environmental attrocities, Obama wouldn't have to ban drilling in the Gulf. Perhaps.

Perhaps if the GOVERNMENT, thy GOVERNMENT, would do something besides PR when a huge accident happens -- perhaps if it would not help the company involved to avoid prosecution, perhaps if it would not help the company involved hide information, and criminalize the collection of real information by Americans -- then perhaps you could have a fair shot at convincing me that the GOVERNMENT, thy GOVERNMENT, is a just GOVERNMENT.

Perhaps if the government would not force companies into 5000 feet of water and stilfe innovation. Perhaps if we realized that our purpose here is not to be ruled by some corruptible elite. Perhaps if the dirtest and largest countries were not always the socialist countries....perhaps if one of your fucking statist ideas ever really worked!!!

Wonder why the CEO is not blaming BP for creating the mess that shut him down? I guess that would be shitting in his own nest.

And this quote from the article:

"What Obama, in conjunction with Wall Street, and the Fed are guilty of, is encouraging people like Bulmahn, and everyone else, to lever up to the hilt on cheap, cheap debt."

Nice to know that all started with Obama, and that the same theory applies to all the homeowners who leveraged up on buying a house in a rising market.

I'll lay the whole thing at the feet of simple Mr. Greed. Aided and abetted by the noted complicit criminals: Wall Street, the Fed, and an unmentioned Congress. No President could, or would, stop that Ponzi! Who wants the punch bowl removed just when everyone has gotten a good buzz?

The whole controversy seems to be about cause and effect. So... why not BP? Stay within one frame of logic. All of the drilling companies didn't go out of business, just the one(s) that took a slight breeze to topple.

Taking precautionary measures to be sure there weren't subsequent spills isn't punishment in my book. Let's say there had been no moratorium and another spill happened? Folks would be singing a different tune. It's all about whose ox is being gored is it not?

I will tell you why, Rocky..because in the real world that grown ups populate you understand things go wrong in attempting great feats. You learn and adapt. In the childish world of the statist nothing ever goes wrong with enough regulations and taxes and government. It is a theoretical utopia that never ever arrives compared to the real world.

BP didn't close down drilling. Obama himself did. I find it amusing that the government experts could not close the well, either. They neither knew how nor had the expertise, equipment or people to do it. Nope, the evil private sector had to do it once again.

With enough time, the government will close down all human life on earth...for our own safety and good.

FG, you are addressing a point that was not raised. Your comments may be more correct than not, but they are irrelevant with regard to the point that Rocky made. If the BP well had not failed, the government would not have suspended drilling in the Gulf. The issue is as simple as that. Occam's Razor and all.

Yep. Thanks. Just like I said -- cause and effect. One cannot argue from one point of view and then another when the so-called facts have not changed. Drawing conclusions on what might have been don't advance the discussion.

I reread it and I will meet you halfway. I agree on precautions. The question is who writes them and how they are implemented. I believe that the BP spill simply gave the pretext for Obama to do what he wanted to do, anyway, cripple American gulf drilling and move to windmills and solar panels. This same President gives Brazil a billion to develop their deepwater capabilities. Reconcile those two things. Reconcile the risk equations.

My point stands that government which knows nothing about the industries they regulate except by the knowledge they gain from those industries tends to be both behind the curve and an obstacle to advancing anything. Using another agency, the FDA, they can disapprove all new meds and then there will never be any negative consequences or unforseen side effects from new meds. No one will ever know what wasn't invented and they can say that they have successfully protected the public from unsafe products. Companies who develop the meds understand the risks, especially class action lawsuits very well but will take riisk in the right environment. The government predilection is always to the negative even though the human cause is advanced through experimentation and risk.

Government promises to eliminate risk in some theoretical world where nothing goes wrong.

BP oil spill was at least in theory an accident. The Government shutting down all drilling was a deliberate action, knowing full well what the results would bring. And the courts twice ruled against those actions but were ignored.

Labor Dept. Attempts to Stop Layoffs by Giving $100 Million to States to Subsidize Payrolls

The Labor Department announced on Monday that it will be awarding almost $100 million in grant funding to states to prevent layoffs by allowing businesses to pay employees as part-time workers and the federal government will pick up the tab for the cost of a full-time paycheck.

So… the government is now funding private payrolls… how long before nationalization??

It's a tacit admission that a) the real unemployment numbers (as opposed to BLS BuLlShit) will become empirically obvious even to those wearing the "Hopey Changey" blinders and b) the situation is deteriorating to the point that it is becoming politically untenable even for the ardent supporters of the party of "Hopey Changey".

Naturally (and arguably Pavlovian) the other party of "Hopey Changey", the one that wears a tie to take a shit, will squawk fashionably so for appearances sake to their Qaeda.

Of course, as inflation is a hidden tax, unemployment is a hidden military draft. Odd choice to name a movement, Occupy is.

Stories have been circulating (denied by the Pentagon) of a Russian Akula class nuclear sub with scientists on board that was sent into the Gulf of Mexico to evaluate the precise state of the BP oil leak (sic) prior to Russia bidding for BP's worldwide properties. What they are reputed to have found was extensive evidence of US military undersea activity in the vicinity of the multiple fissures dumping large quantities of chemical dispersants directly into the fissures to try to keep the oil from appearing on the surface. My guess is that Russia won't be buying BP unless the company can somehow sever its responsibilities for the incredible environmental disaster they caused and continue to cover up with the help of the US ( and British) government.

If this level of venting is ongoing it is only a matter of time before a substantial portion of the sea floor collapses into the caverns below with catastrophic results for the Southeastern US - wouldn't it be all too appropriate if that would happen oh, say, a few weeks before the November electrions? Talk about a Black Swan named Barry.

No one has the right to poison the ocean to make a living. Obama is way too lenient with clowns like this, so I don't know what his problem was. He was probably given everything including tons of free money and illegal drilling licenses, and still couldn't make a fucking living. Maybe if you spent less on hookers, blow and private jet flights, you wouldn't be such a loser.

JUNKED!!! It is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), Monkeywrenchers, Eco-Terrorsts that have frightened the populace that having onshore or close to shore drilling is bad. The reason that the drilling has moved into DEEPWATER areas is due to exactly that, framing the subject that drilling is bad. Going three miles down just to get the sea floor is problematic to say the least, also dodging hurricanes as well. But WTF. Everybody knows what they know because they saw it on TV. The TV never lies. {sarc off}

Offshore drilling is good, so that your views of the ocean go unblemished. {More sarc off}

Tirelessly working day and night to stop the radiation pouring into the ocean from Fukushima that poisons for lifetimes........awake for months on end as the WH oval office door slowly creaks, and a small voice whispers ...."Did you stop the leak yet Daddy?"
"No.......but after the election I will have more flexibility!.........here, have some of this beef I just bought to help the voters....I mean farmers."

You have evidence that this company poisoned the ocean? Why are they in the ocean instead of say...Alaska? Maybe we could just pipe some of that crude from Canada across the USA and avoid poisoning the ocean. Wait a minute...

If his licenses were illegal, who gave them to him? The same people you are glad put him out of business? Where did the free money come from?

If he travelled by electric car, was celibate and only smoked weed, would that be better? Would his company be legit,then?

No-one has the right, and that's the PROBLEM. The ocean is a commons, fully susceptible to the tragedy of the commons.

If we consider the land under the water to be land, then we can allow homesteading, creating property. People who own the property then have a right to sue those who pollute or dump on their property, and have an economic incentive to do so. Overfishing is prevented. Pollution is minimized. Habitats are protected. New economic uses of the sea become possible.

Unless the documents cited in the following post were created by Dan Rather, evidence is that Mr. Obama was a member of the New Party in Ill. "The New Party was the creation of the quasi-Marxist Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the radical community organisation ACORN. The Communist Party splinter group Committees of Correspondence (CoC) was also involved."

Also, this may be an interesting read for those that have distain for the two most popular political parties; or maybe more so for those that believe the Repubican Party is the best thing since sliced bread.

speaking as an older person, there really was a time in this country when the citizens were "good". sound money, family oriented, there was goodness in this country. unfortunately, that has been RUINED by the power of the purse & fiat money. i remember when life was NOT a free-for-all. but, then, i apologize for being old & remembering what used to be. i know others are sick of my blabbering about it, & i've probably said the same thing 100 times over on this site. i know what's coming, god (& gold) help us all to get thru it.

Welcome to the age of Spock. When parents accepted the liberal/progressive dogma of Dr. Spock and they stopped disciplining their children and started reasoning with them, as if they were adults, the world changed. Another psuedo-intellectual preaching dreams instead of reality. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Why is it so hard for people that are supposedly market saavy to admit that solar power is being DUMPED by the Chinese running factories at a loss?

Just FUCKING SAY IT'S SO and be done with it... there can be no alternative energy business models when this problem isn't being addressed. Many of these companies had been around since the 70's with very little demand. But it's also the 'traditional energy' companies that are on borrowed time.

Oh well, with Boeing dipping their toe into China - the government might as well use those 3-bullets/American now and get this over with. We'll never know who our 'representatives' work for. Probably not even getting that much for their complicity - to think you can trash the most powerful country on Earth for $5k donations.

Actually, it's pretty cheap, you just have to pay upfront, and most aren't responsible enough to manage that, they'd rather rent someone's sloppy infrastructure at a guaranteed profit to whoever they rent from.

I've been off grid since '80, when solar cost $10/watt. My latest additions to the system cost me $1.43/watt from Schott - a german company building panels in our Southwest region. No subsidies required, just not being utterly stupid like Solyndra (did anyone see their super incredible far too much money spent on bling factory?).

And now, my solar system is charging my electric car in the driveway, and my gasoline consumption has gone to almost zero, having once been pretty serious.

Could it be that unsubsidized alt energy actually is profitable and cutting down the need for his oil? It's certainly true in my case. Panels made in USE, Maryland or AZ. Inverters and batteries made in Canada. No subsidies have I recieved, I find it better to not have to pay the follow-on personal property taxes I'd have to pay if I report that.

With no building permit - administered by the power company of course - my homes aren't "dwellings" - they are barns. So the tax savings alone paid for the solar in just a few years, even when it cost a lot more than now.

Last I heard, the order of electricity production was like this:

NatGas

Nuclear/alt (renewable)

Coal.

Yep, coal's dead last now. Could that be why coal companies are circling the drain, instead of Tyler's poltical stopped clock rant? You'd think he's beholden to big energy or something and pushing their agenda for them. Thanks man, I'd rather have mine made in America by Americans. I'd rather skip all those dead people we generate in the middle east to satisfy our lust for cheap oil. Some of them are our guys, just in case you didn't notice.

OK, +1 for 5-7-5. But you're also supposed to have a seasonal reference.

And I had to give you my +1 this way because Sacrilege still hasn't fixed the first-line-italicized bug. Nobody can give you up or down ticks. Put a blank (and un-italicized) line first, if you want to lead off with italics.

I vote for more twinkies, Diet Coke, and Doritos for Sacrilege if he fixes this bug.

Something doesn’t sit right with me. When an individual makes an announcement yesterday about oil picks, then walks around masquerading his natural gas investments goals. I get the strong scent of fraud & collusion between a few working group parties.

Destroy hydrocarbons and nuclear and you could systematically re-feudalize even the West.

and they wrote books bragging about it 70 years ago.

we wont go take their metaphysics seriously, but Many P. Hall laid it out quite clearly as did many, many others along the line. We can ignore Malthus, we can ignore the morphing of eugenics into transhumanism and glory in our fake-ass tricorders

but at the end of the day we are alone on a ball of mud hurtling thru space with no deus ex machina to come save us

the fact that we are even able to create energy the way we do today is amazing gentlemen, we have come quite far and yet have so much farther to go technologically.

i fear our Culture is lacking, that it has been deliberately, systematically destroyed for precisely those effects which a panem et circenses populace derives for a tyrannical state and that ultimately we have gone through the looking glass and are effectively beyond the nation-state as a construct Logistically already

obama and romney are puppets

they are Both on board for the big win and a pro AGW metaphysical precondition for a tax on ALL HUMAN ACTIVITY PAID TO A GLOBAL CENTRAL BANK (controlled of course by those who engineered the current GEC and all ones hitherto in the prior century), they will continue to strangle this Republic until the entire world is Chinese and you have NO SAY.

it's so bad that the POTUS said before even being elected he would BANKRUPT OUR ENERGY SECTOR BY DESIGN - and the people cheered

Club of Rome did a masterful job, one must almost admire the Cunning of our enemies - but do not think for a moment these animals are intelligent creatures, this is not the act of a rational organism, it is the trap constructed by a kind of predator, clever via hunger and malice

Energy is a gift and has kept our planet far cleaner than six billion people would otherwise have done. I sometimes wonder if the leftist enviros ever consider how it would be with 6 bil people still riding horses, burning wood and hunting.

The final solution or end of the environmental movement is that some people have to "go".

i love you for your meticulous analysis of the discrete phenomenology and instinctively pull back when i see the chomsky-esque colocation on mere puppets like obama, use of terms like "this administration"

i really have to hand it to the ZH organizing forces because they have created an ideal environment for thge pre-production of precisely the sort of humans we, as a species, have need of today (and perhaps now more than ever, crunch time)

Well, since unsere Fuhrer Obama says that he (the CEO) is not responsible if the company was successful, it must follow that he can't be held responsible for the companies demise. It was the government that made it possible for the company to fail.

Another so called producer bites the dust, good riddance. Let's at least be honest and call this guy what he really is, a con man. He conned the investors, he conned the customers, and he conned the workers, all of who are the ones that really built this company. Now, due to the laws of incorporation, he probably walks away with a personal fortune that's untouchable even though it was skimmed off the top of this Ponzi scheme of a company. How long are we going to tolerate this kind of crime?